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.Sermon hy 

Julp 14, 1918 
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Author 



-Text — Matthew XVI: 26 — "For what shall a 
man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world 
and forfeit his life" (soul). 



There is a great cartoon by the famous Dutch- 
man, showing the Emperor of Germany and the 
King of Belgium standing; and the former, glaring 
angrijy at the younger man, shows him the wreck 
and ruin of his little kingdom, and says:, "See what 
you have lost." But the j^ounger man, unterrified, 
faces the older and the stronger, and replies: "But 
not my soul." It is one of the most striking arith- 
metical figures in all human history. Albert the 
brave, may well turn and ask William the Robber, 
"See, what have you lost? For what shall a man, 
or a nation, or an Emperor be profited if he shall 
gain the whole world and forfeit his soul." Espe- 
cially as in this terrific world struggle, in which all 
humanity is engaged, as the fourth year is drawing 
to an end, there is beginning to be an accounting, 
by all prudent men, in Central Europe as well as 
elsewhere, as to what has come of profit to the great 
people who once, in the ways of peace, were making 
a steady conquest of the world, in scholarship, in in- 
dustry, in commerce, in those impalpable influences, 
those "imponderables," as Bismarck called them, that 
constituted the German achievements in our twen- 
tieth century civilization. What has Germany prof- 



ited, what has she lost, by drawing the sword against 
the whole world ? 

A little more than one hundred ^ears ago, there ex- 
isted in Central Europe, from the Baltic to the 
Danube, over three hundred independent States, 
some of them large, like Prussia, some of them sin- 
gle towns, like Hanover, free and independent, wnth 
their own governments, laws, customs and culture. 
They were of the same blue-eyed, light-haired stock 
that had existed as free and home-loving people, 
when the Roman civilization first came in contact 
with them, and found it necessary to send to the 
Rhine the finest legions and the sturdiest soldiers, 
like Germanicus, to keep them back within their own 
forests, and behind their own rivers. A little over 
100 years ago, that greatest of all fighting men the 
world has known, overran all this region, defeated 
and scattered the armies, assembled to defend their 
ancient rights and placed his own henchmen in con- 
trol of the German States; and levied upon their 
young men to raise armies, to carry on his nefarious 
plans in Spain and in Russia. Incidentally Napol- 
eon combined many of these smaller States, so that 
when the German people rose and with the help of 
Great Britain and Austria and Russia, defeated the 
Grand Army, and sent the Corsican adventurer to 
dream and despair and die, on the lonely island of 
St. Helena, the three hundred German States had 
become only thirty-nine. From the days of Napol- 
eon's fall, for fifty years, until the close of our Civil 
War, these thirty-nine German states were in con- 
stant political turmoil, the people endeavoring to se- 
cure larger liberty, and the princes endeavoring to 
hold them back. Two States contested for the lead- 



ership of the German people, — Austria, under the 
Hapsburgs, and Prussia, under the HohenzoUerns. 
In 1849 the German Diet, or General Council of 
the Germanic people, offered to Frederick Hohenzol- 
lern of Prussia, the Emperorship of Germany. But 
Frederick was a gentle prince, without ambition to 
so difficult a crown, and the matter lapsed. At last 
in 1866, Austria and Prussia clashed, and in a six 
weeks' war, Prussia found herself victorious, and at 
the head of the North German Confederation of 
some thirty German States, with Prussia the undis- 
puted leader; and Austria, who had been the leader 
for 250 years, ceased to belong to the German 
system. Meanwhile in the troubles of these times, 
thousands and hundreds of thousands of good Ger- 
mans, having no interest in these squabbles, left the 
fatherland, and came to America, to Canada, the 
United States, to South America, to Mexico, and 
to the ends of the earth. They brought with them 
the old German virtues of thrift, love of home, in- 
dependence, and unwillingness to interfere with the 
rights and privileges of other peoples. They also 
brought with them their religion, and wherever they 
went, they established their churches, — Lutheran, 
Reformed, Evangelical, Baptist, and several scores 
of varieties of pietism, all of which flourished ex- 
ceedingly, especially in the United States, where we 
have no less than fifty-nine different denominations 
of German Protestants^ — to say nothing of 
the hundreds of thousands of German Catho- 
lics. These Germans, of course, brought with them 
the traditions of their homeland ; they sang their chil- 
dren to sleep with the old German luUabys; they 
told them the stories of the fairies and gnomes, that 



were told to the little German folk in the Rhineland 
and in Swabia; they organized their young people 
into athletic societies called Turn Vereins; they had 
their sinking societies, and their annual festivals and 
picnics, and they also gathered in their beer-gardens, 
to pass away the hours of leisure. But they were 
loyal to the land of their adoption. When slavery 
raised its hateful head in the civil war, they saved 
Missouri from seceding; they held Cincinnati firm 
for the Union, and in Cleveland the Germans were 
the first people to speak out for the fight to the fin- 
ish, against secession. They did more, — they en- 
listed, and fought and died. Siegel and Rosecrans, 
Osterhous and Carl Schurz, trained soldiers in Ger- 
many some of them, gave their military skill to fol- 
low Lincoln and destroy slavery. 

Meanwhile, in the old country, there came on a 
steady development. The most dangerous man in 
the world in the 3^ear 1870 was Napoleon the Third, 
usurper of the throne of France, the man who, when 
we were at war with the south, sent an army to 
Mexico, and proposed to set up a throne on Ameri- 
can soil, and crown Maximilian an American Em- 
peror, owning allegiance to himself. Napoleon "the 
little," Victor Hugo called him, — the man with the 
ambitions of his uncle, but without his genius; a 
shrewd, cunning, crafty despot, who ruled France 
with the bayonet and the Bastile. 

In 1870 the Germans and the French came into 
conflict. The French had no interest in their cor- 
rupt government, which was tainted with oppres- 
sion, and corrupted with the same kind of disloyal 
graft, that brought the armies of Russia so recently 
to ruin. The brave French soldiers found their 



bayonets made of cheap, soft Iron, that bent in the 
charge. They found their powder made of sawdust. 
Their Generals like Bazaine, in Metz, betrayed 
them, and their Emperor surrendered his huge army 
at Sedan, while the French officers broke their own 
swords against their knees, and the privates threw 
their guns into the open cisterns and wells, in impo- 
tent rage at the cowardice of their leaders. France 
in 1870 was a nation betrayed by its leaders. But 
Napoleon the bloody, and all his ilk, passed from 
the history of France forever. After the Commune, 
— the French Bolsheviki, — of 40 years ago, the Re- 
public came, and France paid off her terrible ia- 
demnity of five milliard francs, from the savings of 
her peasant people, and began the patient toil of a 
generation, to recover her position among the fami- 
lies of men, by the steady development of freedom 
in the State and the Church, and began to make her 
great place once more in the realm of the spirit^ in 
music, and art, and science and books. 

The Germans had at last won their freedom and 
their unity. The Emperor was crowned in the old 
Royal palace at Versailles, in 1871, and the French 
indemnity paid for the war, and Germany was with- 
out a military rival upon the planet. Then began a 
wonderful era of civil development. Secure from any 
foe, Germany built great seaports as at Hamburg 
and Bremen. From these ports the ships began to 
sail to all the seven seas. And they did not go emp- 
ty. German organization at home built great fac- 
tories, that were organized with the skill of chemist 
and physicist, and managed by great Masters of busi- 
ness. And the ships went laden to the ends of the 
earth, with the product of German patience, and 



German skill, and German integrity. In advance 
of these cargoes also, the missionaries of commerce 
went, neglecting no part of the globe to prepare the 
way for German trade, to secure raw materials that 
should fill the holds of German boats with re- 
turn cargoes, of articles necessary to carry on the 
manufacturing concerns. The whole German nation 
was so organized, its manpower was so put to work, 
that Germans did not need to go away from home to 
secure a chance to earn a living. Meanwhile the cit- 
ies were not neglected, and paved streets, and sew- 
ers, and water supply, and light, and municipal com- 
fort was made possible, by this intensive organiza- 
tion. The German city became the model city, in 
its housing, in its police, in its parks and playhouses. 
If cheap labor was needed, it was imported from 
Austria and Russia, for a specific time, and was 
thereafter returned again, without becoming a part 
of the German citizenship. So there grew a great 
nation unified, compacted, homogeneous; taking 
pride in itself ; speaking the same language ; un- 
mixed with foreign elements, that were not Ger- 
man. In time, the finest ships afloat carried the 
passengers and freight of Americans and British and 
French. To take passage on a German boat, was to 
have the best accommodations, at the lowest figure, 
in the Indian Ocean, on the South American coast, 
in the China sea. To put up at a German hotel in 
Palestine or Syria Avas a luxury. 

This was the great industrial and commercial fact 
of the latter part of the nineteenth century — this 
splendid industrial development of Germany. For 
with it went the cultivation of mine and soil. Iron 
and sfeel leaped forward in their output, increasing 



far beyond any other nation. The Germans raised 
more beet sugar than any other more favored peo- 
ple. They sought to become independent in the pro- 
duction of meat and cereals. They made other 
smaller nations dependent upon them for the neces- 
sities of their development. Their potash w^as de- 
manded for the fields of America. Their beetseed 
for the farmers of Michigan and Utah. Our chem- 
icals came from their laboratories, our textile indus- 
tries depended upon their dyes. They laid the 
world under obligations to them, for the things that 
made industry profitable. Our children's Christmas- 
time was made glad by German toys. 

Back of this industry w^as a splendid fiscal sj'S- 
tem. The German had never toyed with fiat or in- 
ferior money. He knew the value of an honest 
Standard of money. The German vote in the West- 
ern States,- had defeated Bryan's stupid 16 to 1 propa- 
ganda in 1896. So back of his commerce was a 
strong, sound money system, and credit system, based 
on the latest and best science. Moreover he knew 
how to tax where the burden could most easily be 
borne, and when people are prosperous and have a 
steady wage, and are insured against old age and dis- 
ability, and are provided with unceasing employ- 
ment, they are ivilling to pay taxes, and endure any 
other hardship put upon them by a paternal govern- 
ment, that protects and cares for them. That is 
the secret of Germany's strength, to endure the terri- 
ble ravages of this war, — a contented, prosperous 
common-people. 

But these people did not confine their energies and 
their conquests to the realm of the material. They 
led the world, apparently, in the things of the spir- 



it. A wonderful educational system gave ever}^ 
German child an education. It was defective edu- 
cation, as we now know, because it was planned to 
deliberately educate the multitude just enough, and 
no more, and then educate the picked and chosen 
people, very highly, to be their Masters. Neverthe- 
less it was a real, universal education, in which as a 
result, there was no illiteracy, and a general intelli- 
gence. Above this, was a vast, secondary Technical 
and University education, for scholars and the offi- 
cial class. And so efficient were these universities, 
that the whole world was drawn to them, to find out 
the last word of German scholars, in philosophy, in 
physics, in mathematics, in history, in language. 
There were certain lines of study that you could not 
pursue anywhere, except in a German University. 
So it came to pass that we hesitated to appoint anj^- 
one to a chair in any of our first-class Universities, 
of England or America unless they had first stud- 
ied and secured a degree in Germany. I r^^cali feel- 
ing disgusted, when President of a western College, 
that my Faculty resisted the appointment of any one, 
to a chair in the College, who had merely studied at 
Harvard or Johns Hopkins. In the realm of phil- 
osophy, particularly, if you could not speak from 
actual knowledge of German philosophy, you held 
your peace in the company of scholars. 

German scholars also dominated entirely the 
realm of history. I recall, when graduating from 
College, a proposition, that I should take up the 
teaching of history at Oberlin and first of all go to 
Germany at the expense of the College, under a fel- 
lowship, to learn something about the subject. No 
one thought it possible to know anything about his- 



tory, without consulting the German scholars, in 
their own class rooms. I shudder now, when I think 
how narrowly I escaped by going into the Ministry. 

When the war broke out, the Universities of Ger- 
many were crowded with Foreign students. — the 
majority from America. Moreover in the study of 
Music, in the study of Art, Germany was the shrine. 
The Dresden Gallery contains the greatest painting 
ever put on canvass," Raphael's Sistine Madonna. 
The musicians of Germany have easily led the world. 

In 1914 thousands of good people were spending 
their money in Germany — school teachers on their 
vacations; business men studying business methods; 
political leaders going to the sources of political 
thought ; merchants, specialists, experts, thousands, 
found themselves stranded in the Empire. The rep- 
utation of Germany was at its height. She had 
every thing a nation could wish, in the way of pres-^ 
tige. The great powers feared her, and the last 
thing they would think of doing was to start a quar- 
rel with Germany. She could have gone on indefi- 
nitely absorbing the best things of this planet. For 
in these years from 1870 to 1914 she had secured 
colonies all over the earth ; in North and South 
America alone, the Monroe doctrine had kept her 
from colonizing, but in Africa she had gained, in 
the South and in the East and in the Northwest, 
valuable territories, many times larger than the en- 
tire area of Germany in Europe. Here was virgin 
soil for the cultivation of all the raw material she 
needed. Not only there, but on the mainland of 
China, she had established a fortress, with a colony 
back of it, to be the nucleus of holdings and com- 
merce, in China, as England had at Hong Kong, and 



France in Tonquin, and the United States at Ma- 
nila. In the Pacific she had valuable islands, sold 
her by Spain. In Samoa, she shared with us, and 
with the British. In New Guinea, the largest island 
in the world, she had a tropical territory twice as 
large as the State of Ohio. Moreover just before 
the war broke out, according to the revelations of 
Prince Lichnowski, the German Ambassador to Lon- 
don, Great Britain had agreed to give her a free 
hand in the Turkish Empire, to develop her railroad 
to the Persian Gulf, from Constantinople, and to co- 
operate with her in policing the difficult regions of 
Asia. She had everything coming her way — with 
the rest of the world willing to give her more and 
more opportunity, as she appeared to be helping on 
the causes of civilization. Surely we all believed 
that if Germany could enter Turkey fully, as she 
had partially, she might cleanse that Augean stable 
of the world, and bring peace and happiness to a 
multitude of oppressed people. 

But some grim Satan had taken the Kaiser up to 
the top of the mountain and showed him the king- 
doms of the world, and tempted him, and he yielded. 
He wanted all the earth. He was not content with 
the portion that had been secured, and which was 
being steadily enlarged, under the evolution of peace. 
Moreover he was coming to be a man past middle 
life. There were only about fifteen more 5Aears to 
his reign. And he had not yet acquired the title of 
military conqueror. He had achieved victories of 
peace, — that is, his nation had, and he had shared 
the acclaim of all the earth, for those victories; but 
his fathers had been soldiers, and they had military 
victories emblazoned on their records, both his father, 



the beloved "Unser Fritz," and his grandfather, the 
victor of Sadowa and Sedan. And when that temp- 
tation came, and the Satanic insanity possessed him, 
the assassination in Bosnia gave him the opportunity. 
Making his people believe that they were being at- 
tacked, he let loose the dogs of war, and the whole 
world is shedding its blood as a consequence. Four 
years of it, — and what has that madman gained for 
his people? 

The prosperity piled up by years of faithful toil 
on the part of the industrious German people, has 
been swallowed up in the flames of war. Besides that, 
upon the backs of future generations of the German 
people, has been fastened a huge debt, the mere in- 
terest charges for which, w^ill exhaust the entire rev- 
enue to be received by taxation for a century to 
come. But to meet that debt, and the interest 
charges, there will be several millions less of effective 
man power; the taxpayers are dead men; and who 
can measure the destruction of brain power! ]\Iore- 
over Germany, w^hich had prospered beyond all rec- 
ords, because of her trade, has lost all her custo- 
mers, and there is no disposition on their part, and 
will not be for years to come, any disposition, to re- 
sume that trade. 

From that point of view the war, especially the 
war upon Britain and America, her best customers, 
was the act of a madman. For not only has she 
kindled the fires of deep resentment on the part of 
her enemies, but she has compelled them to provide 
for themselves the goods she formerly furnished. The 
little children of five continents will no longer play 
wath German toys. The pharmacists of the larger 
part of the world will no longer look to Germany 



for their essential drugs. The rest of the world is 
making its own dye-stuffs, and the tropical islands 
are raising the sui^ar which Germany formerly pro- 
vided. The people who in other days traveled for 
business and for pleasure in the floating palaces of 
the North German Lloyd and the Hamburg Ameri- 
can steamers, will hereafter sail on American boats 
to all the ends of the e^arth. 

And ever}' step that Germany has taken has been 
a blunder. It thought to subdue Belgium ; but Bel- 
gium, after four years, is as rebellious as ever; for It 
was a great man who once said, "you can do every- 
thing with a bayonet except sit on it." It shot Edith 
Cavell to put down the Belgian spirit, and Edith 
Cavell joined Joan of Arc among the immortal 
women. It proposed to starve Britain by the ruth- 
less submarine, but it only aroused America to wrest 
away the command of the sea, by an enormous navy 
and a still more huge merchant marine. Every in- 
sult it sent out has been sharpened and poisoned and 
sent back into its own bosom, with redoubled venom. 
It tried to conquer Russia by deceit, and it only 
opened a Pandora's box of evil spirits, that will re- 
turn to torture its autocracy, and strip it finally of 
all power. It would make its way to the Nile and 
the Indus, by its cultivation of the unspeakable vil- 
lainies of the Turk, but it only doomed the Turk to 
extinction. It united itself with Austria to push to 
the Aegean Sea; but it only brought upon Austria 
misery upon misery, and probably dissolution. It 
proposed to plunder the world, to enrich itself, — 
and its children cry for bread, in the streets of Berlin 
and Munich. 

And from the seats of the mighty, in the realm of 

14 



the spirit, German}- has been cast down from her 
throne. The wreath of laurel and the wreath of 
bay have been torn from her brow. No man will 
hereafter go to Germany for his philosophy ; for her 
scholars have made themselves contemptible by their 
justification of injustice. Her Universities will be 
deserted by the youth of the whole civilized world, 
for they have involved themselves in her barbaric 
cruelties. And even her place of leadership in music 
and art will pass to others; for who can be musical 
in a land that has been given over to the discords of 
bandits! The deepest wound that Germany has in- 
flicted upon herself is the moral w^ound. Men thought 
her free of spirit, wedded to truth and honor, lov- 
ing justice and mercy, seeking with passion the veri- 
ties that set men free. They have found her bereft 
of honor, craven in spirit, torturing innocent women 
and helpless children, with no regard for truth on 
her own confession, putting her trust in lies, and 
showing no mercy even to the victims of war in 
Hospitals and Hospital ships. They esteemed her as 
given to religion, and to those high ideals that v/cre 
brought into the w^orld by our Saviour; but they hnd 
her delighting in sending her bombs into sanctuaries, 
and desecrating the shrines dedicated to the Christ. 
The old Prophet once asked, "Is there no balm in 
Gilead ; is there no physician there?" He asked it 
hopelessly ; for the w^ound of his people was incur- 
able and he cried out. "O that my head were waters 
and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep 
day and night for my people!" Surely men and 
women mHo have loved Germany for all she was, 

15 



might well quote the old prophet; for there ;s no 
balm in Gilead that will heal her wound. 

"What shall a nation be profited, if it shall gain 
the whole world, and lose its soul?" Still more, what 
shall it be profited if it fail to gain the world and 
also loses its soul? 

The lesson is not only for Germany. It is a les- 
son for humanity for all time. The law of the 
world is the law of Jesus, the law of the Golden 
Rule. That wins. That brings happiness. To defy 
it — to trample upon it, is utter madness. "Be not 
deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a 
man soweth that shall he also reap." 



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